The true northerner., 1887-03-30
THE ST. 10 BOON.
A City of 10000 That VIII Number IOO,.
600 In Twelve Months.


Most remarkable statements are heard
IN every hotel lobby and on every railroad
train about st. Joseph, No, writes press
correspondent. A large amount of Kan
sas City, Chicago and st. Louis capital is
being invested in st. Joseph real estate,
ana hear that number of large enter
pflses, employing thousands of men and
with capital that tops millions, have
completed arrangements for moving. bag
and baggage, to this new center of emi-
grafton. L met a st. Joseph man ON q
Wabash train to-day. He tells me
that the immediate cause of the great boom
Is the extension OF the Chicago, Rock
Island and Pacific Railroad. This great
system Is making st. Joseph its Missouri
River depot for its freight and stock traffic
between Chicago and the Northwestern
ranges, and has given the city a promi-
nence as a railroad center equaled only by
Chicago. The extension or the Rock Island
has induced the Chicago, Milwaukee and
st. Paul to extend the diagonal southwark
TO St. Joseph, and the Santa Fe to come
up direct from Topeka and Atchison, in
order To secure short cut to Chicago,
said to be sixty miles shorter
than by any other way. The Rulo
bridge will be completed by the first of
August, and that will send the Burlington
and Missouri trains from Denver straight
through st. Joseph, eastward VIA the Han
nibal. These and other favorable circum-
stances have combined TO bring about a
boom which. as 1 said in the outset, has
become the absorbing topic OF conversation
in every prominent hotel lobby half way
across the continent. / hear of men who
have made fortune in one day on
an investment of ~ ,000. People are
buying lots in hollows and on top of
bluffs, and half the sales are made from
the map without an inspection Of the
ground whereon they are located. The
city has about CO. coo inhabitants, and not
the least remarkable fact is that she is
quoted in the last United States census as,
next TO Portland the richest town of
her size in the country, controlling the
Wholesale trade of Kansas, Nebraska, Col
orado and New Mexico. Her shipping
facilities. coupled with her large whole
sale trade, have made her perhaps the best
manufacturing and pork packing point in
the West The new Stock Yards, the most
complete west of Chicago. cover 440 acres
of ground, aud will shortly combine an
hotel, stock exchange and several large
packing houses, with other facilities. Local
capitalists are erecting a new $500, 900 no.
lei, safe depository, and companies have
been organized TO build IA belt line and two
cable roads, while the Council has just
granted the right to two of the street car
companies TO employ the electric motor.
An inspection of the Boston Posts weekly
clearing house reports for the past three
months shows the percentage of increase
the largest OF any city quoted in the report.
Under such like circumstances. my in
fomant thought. the boom rested upon n
solid footing. Strangers are coming i'll by
every train, and he predicted that the city
would have population of 100000 in the
next twelve months. Large additions to
the city are plated, put on the market and
sold in two days for residences, man ufact-
uring and business purposes. the real es-
tate deals ranging from S250,000 to 500,
0O0 a day, those of last week footing up
$500, ,0G0."